Seventy years ago this month, the July 1951 issue of Popular Mechanics gave some pointers on how to safely do some repairs to your television. The magazine noted that sets were much more complex than radios, but even inexperienced owners were often able to bring a radio set back to life by swapping tubes, and there was no reason that they couldn’t do the same thing with a television.

Of course, the first step was to make sure you knew which tube went in which socket, and the magazine provided sources for this information. The second issue was the high voltages, which could prove lethal, and the magazine noted how to make sure the capacitors were discharged before tackling the job.

If the picture tube had to be replaced, one important safety factor to keep in mind was that the tube could implode if dropped, sending chards of glass all over the room. As shown above, when doing this delicate job, it was important to wear gloves and safety goggles. To dispose of the old tube, it was put in the box in which the new one came. Then, it was taken to the back yard, and a crowbar was used to smash it to smithereens inside the box, so it didn’t risk implosion when the garbage man hauled it away.